


i'm no hero, that's understood

by beastofthesky



Category: Captain America (Movies)
Genre: Coda, Fix-It, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Post-Captain America: Civil War (Movie), Queerplatonic Relationships
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-17
Updated: 2016-05-17
Packaged: 2018-06-09 02:31:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,016
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6885520
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/beastofthesky/pseuds/beastofthesky
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Takes place after the events of Captain America: Civil War. <b>Spoilers ahoy.</b></p>
<p>Part codafic, part fix-it fic. A discussion is had. Things take a bit of a different turn.</p>
            </blockquote>





	i'm no hero, that's understood

Everything reeks of sweat and blood and metal and gunpowder and Bucky’s breaths are heavy and ragged in his ears and for a split second it’s ‘44 again and they’re in Germany and a shell managed to throw Bucky out of the church tower—–

—but then he misses a step and the impressive collection of wounds he’s acquired opens its collective jaws to scream in protest and Bucky stumbles with him, flecking (more) blood, sweat, god-knows-what onto Steve’s face as they both stagger.

“Steve—”

“I’m fine.”

Bucky mutters something under his breath that could very well be _you’re fucking not_ , but Steve’s ears are still ringing with the sound of his shield against Tony’s suit and the closer they get to those blast doors, the worse the cold air stings. He’ll remember Siberia for a while, alright.

The hazy whiteness of the landscape resolves itself into several shapes: the Quinjet, Zemo’s snowcat, Tony’s chopper, a second jet, a head, and two bodies.

Scratch that. A mask. One body. And a king.

Bucky stops them both and slowly stiffens, straightens himself up, getting ready for a fight, and there’s a part of Steve’s brain that’s screaming at him that _you won’t make it through another fight, you’re half-dead, Bucky’s in no shape—–-_

“Captain.”

Bucky’s arm is sliding down his shoulders but Steve desperately grabs on to him, grabs a fistful of his jacket, and _holds_.

“Your Highness.”

T’Challa gestures towards the body. All Steve can see are boots. Bucky is forcing his breaths even, back tense.

“Zemo is unconscious,” T’Challa says, and his voice is soft. “I will take him to the UN. They can hold him; he is only a man.”

Steve’s at a loss for words. T’Challa must have heard everything. The tension slowly, _slowly_ starts to leak out of Bucky’s frame, and he starts to inch his arm back to where he’d had it levered across Steve’s shoulder.

“Thank you,” Steve manages.

“You are on the run,” T’Challa continues, slowly moving closer, carefully keeping his hands visible, claws sheathed. “As am I, for that matter. Luckily for me, I have a country that will protect me. I can offer the same to you both.”

He goes lightheaded, brain whizzing through everything this entails, and then he meets Bucky’s eyes. Bucky gives him the slightest nod. Just closes his eyes, really. That’s enough for Steve.

“Thank you,” Steve repeats, because there’s nothing more he can say.

Bucky tenses as _something_ racks his body, breath catching in his throat, and Steve immediately looks back at him. All he gets in return is a head-shake and closed eyes.

“You are both injured, and unless I am mistaken, your Quinjet is better equipped than mine is for… multiple passengers.” T’Challa picks up his helmet, still moving slow and open, and tucks it under his arm. “Stark?”

Steve jerks his head towards the bunker.

They’re starting to stain the snow red. An old, cold fear is rising up in his chest, one that’s never quite gone away; the same fear he felt in ‘45 when that train car got blown open, the same fear that still wakes him up, on the bad nights. He tightens his grip.

T’Challa ushers them into the Quinjet, sets his helmet down on the flight panel, tells them to strap in, and goes to retrieve Zemo.

 

* * *

 

There’s a cot in the belly of the Quinjet, neatly stowed, in clear reach of the equally-neatly-stowed medkit. (Well, more than just a _kit_ , but it’s no operating theatre.) It’s not quite big enough for the two of them to sit on, but they try anyways. T’Challa had made a beeline for Bucky’s arm the second they’d hit cruising altitude, and Steve’s been in the bay since T’Challa had called him away from the pilot’s seat.

The medkit’s got wipes and towels and cleansers and even a suture kit, and they’ve gotten most of the blood off their faces, but the surface-level injuries are frankly the least pressing issue. Modern medicine is great, but there’s only so much they can do in a Quinjet for an assortment of injuries that involves second-degree burns from Tony’s repulsors, and probably some heavy internal bleeding.

“Remember that time,” Bucky says, slow and quiet, “when you pissed off half a football team outside that diner?”

Steve snorts out a laugh, and Bucky’s hand skitters up Steve’s temple with it. The antiseptic stings. Bucky’s thumb sweeps lightly over Steve’s cheek, silently making amends for the antiseptic’s transgressions.

“It wasn’t _half a football team_ ,” Steve argues. “And they were harassing that girl.”

“You nearly got gutted.” Bucky rolls his eyes at him, and it’s the same affectionate gesture that Steve remembers so vividly. He sets down the wipe he’d been using, evidently done cleaning up Steve’s face. That, or there’s too much to take care of in one exhausted sitting. “Went through half a bottle patchin’ you up.”

“Only ‘cause you drank half.”

It’s Bucky’s turn to snort out a laugh. Their heads have been drooping down for what feels like hours now, and Steve finally lets his forehead rest against Bucky’s.

“Something’s bothering you.”

“Everything’s bothering me.” There’s genuine humor in Bucky’s voice, buried deep under exhaustion, but it’s neither a deflection nor a complete answer. Steve lets it slide.

“Get some rest.” Steve leans away and Bucky follows him for a good few inches before letting his head hang. “I’ll give you the cot. Just… get some rest.”

“You won’t give me a damn thing,” Bucky grunts, and locks his hand around Steve’s forearm before he can get up. “And for chrissake, put a bandage on that.”

So Steve relents, and does a sort of alright job with a couple butterfly closures as Bucky’s hand drifts its way up to his shoulder. This is at least on par with how bad he’d gotten beat at the Triskelion. Probably worse. At least he’s conscious this time.

Bucky leans back when Steve’s done, satisfied, and sighs when Steve inclines his head down towards the cot. He obliges, though, lowers himself down onto the cot at an angle, letting his right shoulder hang over the edge, letting his right leg dangle, crooking up his left leg so that his shin is pressed against Steve’s thigh.

T’Challa had done _something_ to Bucky’s—- shoulder. It’s not sparking any more, and he’d wrapped the loose wires up in a tourniquet of sorts. Steve’s chest clenches every time he thinks about it.

“Does it hurt?”

Bucky doesn’t roll his eyes at him.

“Not really. He disconnected the sensory processing. It just…” He shifts. “It’s like a phantom limb. I’m not getting shocked by it anymore, though.”

Steve can’t do much more than sigh in response, and he leans over to put a hand on Bucky’s good shoulder. Bucky, in turn, sighs back with pointed exasperation, brings his hand up behind Steve’s other elbow, and pulls.

“Remember when we were on the Soviet border,” Steve says, obligingly folding himself down, “and it was _so_ damn cold—”

“—and Dernier lit a fucking fire in his tent,” Bucky interrupts, laughing. “God, that was, what, only the second mission?”

“Yeah.” He can _hear_ the grin in Bucky’s voice even as he watches it spread across his face, buried, like everything else, under that persistent layer of exhaustion.

“Man.”

Gravity is taking its toll and Steve finds himself inching down towards Bucky’s shoulder and they’re fourteen again, squeezing into a rickety bed, squirming impatiently, getting elbowed in the gut.

But man, Bucky’s filled out. Sure, there’s a _reason_ for it and all, but he was never this broad, not even during the war. It’s— well, it’s something. For the first time in a long time, Steve wishes he was small again.

“Never gonna get used to how huge you are,” Bucky mutters, as if he’d read Steve’s mind. “Every time I thought I got used to it, nah, here comes Rogers and his star-spangled goddamn shoulders.”

“You’re giving me a pretty good run for my money now,” Steve replies, quietly, and he hadn’t meant for it to be as somber as it came out. Bucky takes it with silence, but he brings his hand up to run his fingers up the side of Steve’s neck, behind his ear, carding through his hair.

This feels… _bizarre_ , if Steve’s going to be honest with himself. It’s been a _long-ass day_ and that’s always when it’s hardest to reconcile the fact that he missed _seventy goddamn years_ of history. They’re fourteen, curled up during a blizzard, and they’re sixteen, both hit bad by the flu, and they’re twenty, miserable and hungry but together, and they’re here, side-by-side on a way-too-small cot, nearly a hundred years old, nothing like who they used to be. Out of time.

But that’s the thing: Bucky still sighs in the same irritating way he always did, still runs the pads of his fingers against Steve’s scalp the same way he always did, still breathes soft and nearly silent the same way he always did. Some things, Steve supposes, are just hard-wired.

It’s quiet, save for their breaths, and Steve lets himself lose track of time. Even hurting — hurting _bad_ , sweaty, bloody, disgusting — this is… good. And yeah, it’s selfish, but that’s been par for the course, lately.

Bucky sighs in that one particular way he’s got, and Steve knows something’s coming.

“I’m scared,” Bucky finally mumbles, a full minute later, voice resigned. "All it took was a handful of words. That can’t happen again.”

Steve stays quiet. Not much for him to say.

“Thought I broke it all, but—” Another sigh, a frustrated exhale. “—it’s still in there. Guess the only difference now is I remember what I did.”

“You know that’s not true,” Steve replies firmly, and punctuates it with a hand on Bucky’s chest. Bucky just huffs out another breath, cogs clearly turning as he pushes his fingers through Steve’s hair again.

“Wakanda’s one of the most advanced countries in the world. Technologically, medically—” Bucky turns his head down, presses his mouth to the top of Steve’s head, lets his words hang in the air. “I don’t know.” His words are muffled. Steve can feel the warmth of his unsteady breath. “Dunno what to do.”

Steve gently torques himself out of Bucky’s grip to move onto his side and lever himself back up onto his forearm. God, Bucky looks bad. His eyes don’t leave Steve for a second.

“We’ll figure it out,” Steve says, and the corners of Bucky’s mouth turn up at ‘we.’

Bucky’s hand comes up to his neck this time, slides against his jaw, and Steve lets his eyes close.

“You gave up your shield.” Bucky’s voice is so quiet, Steve barely hears it above the Quinjet’s engines.

“Doesn’t matter.”

“Yeah, it does,” Bucky insists, and there’s a stubborn edge working into his voice. Steve doesn’t reply, doesn’t argue or confirm or deny, just leans down to press their foreheads together again. “ _Steve_.”

“Later, okay?”

“Later _when?_ Another seventy years later?”

Steve opens his eyes to see familiar fond exasperation on Bucky’s face, and he sighs in defeat.

“Buck, I didn’t even make it a whole two days without you, back in ‘44. A shield can be replaced.” A cold look enters Bucky’s eyes; it’s still unfamiliar on him, but Steve knows it well from Nat. He cuts Bucky off the second he opens his mouth. _“Don’t_.”

Bucky just laughs bitterly.

“I’m not talking about just your shield, Steve.”

“You’d have done the same for me,” Steve presses mulishly.

“‘Course I would.” Bucky’s hand tightens. “Doesn't mean people didn't get hurt.”

“Listen—” Steve leans back and readjusts. The bruise on his elbow is starting to protest. “—what’s done is done.” Bucky’s staring up at him (they haven’t broken eye contact yet, but this is _staring,_ now) with an unfathomable look in his eyes. Steve relents, and hangs his head. “I’m sorry.”

“For _what?_ ” A laugh bubbles its way through Bucky’s voice, incredulous, bitter. “Out of the million things you’ve fucked up, what _specifically_ are you apologizing for?”

“For dragging you into this. I dragged a lot of people into my mess. I shouldn’t have.”

“Captain America, finally showing his selfish side.” It’s not quite a joke. There’s ice in Bucky’s voice, and it hurts. “You’re damn right I didn’t want to get tangled up in this. I—” His breath catches. “I killed people. Because I got involved. Because you _involved_ me.”

“I’m sorry.” Steve looks up to meet his eyes again.

This time, Bucky’s the one who sighs and looks away.

“Don’t do that.”

“What?”

“The whole, _‘I’m sorry,’_ big wide eyes—”

“I’m not— I don’t—”

“—just because you know I can’t re—”

“I’m _sorry_ , Buck, I’m genuinely—”

“That’s the _problem_. That’s the damn problem.” Bucky shakes his head, frustrated. “Help me up. I’m not gonna argue with you lying down.”

Steve lets out an incredulous snort and levers a hand under Bucky’s back, pulling him up, and Bucky slings his arm back around Steve’s shoulders.

“I _am_ sorry. I’m _sorry_.”

“Jesus H. _Christ_ , Rogers.” He buries his face into Steve’s shoulder and groans. “That’s the _problem_.” Steve’s caught between exasperated and annoyed, but he stays quiet. “I’m not gonna pretend like I’m not upset about it. I’m _also_ not gonna pretend like I don’t forgive you. God knows I get where you’re coming from,” he finishes in a mutter.

“I made a mess. Got people involved, got people hurt. Everything spiraled, and it’s on me.”

“It is,” Bucky agrees, and that _hurts_. God knows he’s earned it, though. “So now it’s on you to fix it.” It’s Bucky’s turn to tilt their foreheads together.

“You’re right,” Steve says, quiet. “I said I’d deal with it, and I will.”

“Captain.” T’Challa’s soft voice sounds harsh through the speaker, and Steve nearly jumps at the interruption. “If I may have a word.”

“Go,” Bucky nudges, nose brushing against Steve’s, when a solid thirty seconds have passed and Steve still hasn’t moved. “I’m not goin’ anywhere.”

Steve reluctantly leans away, stands up, winces as probably every muscle in his body protests. He makes his way back to the cockpit, passing a bound, gagged, and still-unconscious Zemo, strapped firmly into one of the passenger seats, and pauses when T’Challa turns to look at him.

“Is Barnes well?” Of all things, this is probably the last that Steve had been expecting.

“All things considered, yes.”

“Good.” He stands, fluid and catlike, and Steve would honestly jump at the chance for a friendly match against him. “I would like to speak with him.”

“I can fly for however long you need me to.” Steve moves aside, and gestures. “You need rest, too.”

“Not as much as you,” T’Challa replies wryly. “But thank you.”

 

* * *

 

 

A gentle hand on his shoulder pulls him out of the calm silence of flight, and Steve looks up to see T’Challa. He’s not entirely sure how long it’s been – it’s still dusky, and they’ve been flying with the sun, so probably not too long – but some of the lines on T’Challa’s face have eased.

“Thank you,” T’Challa says, inclining his head towards the flight console, and gestures for Steve to get up. He stands, obligingly, and a fresh, new wave of exhaustion hits him.

“Is everything alright?” he asks, because he feels like he should say _something_.

“Yes.” T’Challa looks at him and it feels like he’s being laid bare, stripped down to the core. “Captain.”

Steve knows a dismissal when he hears it.

“Your Highness.”

He makes his way back to the Quinjet’s bay, and he finds Bucky still sitting on the cot. He looks over when Steve walks up, arm falling away from where he’d been rubbing his shoulder.

“You okay?”

“Yeah.” And then, predicting Steve’s question— “He wanted to take another look, clean things up some more.” He nods towards his shoulder.

Steve exhales and leans against the wall, arms crossed loosely, and waits for whatever it is that’s coming. Bucky looks calm — at peace, really — so Steve figures it’s either going to be a) not so bad or b) _completely_ bad. As is his way, Bucky gives him a long, forlorn look before sighing and delivering. And _he’d_ given Steve crap about big wide eyes.

“T’Challa offered me the cryonic suite in his labs.”

Steve’s body jerks forward without his consent and it feels like there are claws ripping into his chest, through his lungs, tearing down to the quick.

“Bucky—”

“Let me finish,” Bucky says firmly, and the expression on his face changes to something halfway between concern and placation. “You look like you’re gonna faint. C’mere.”

So Steve obligingly half-stumbles to the cot, and sits so that their knees are touching. Bucky puts an easy hand on his thigh, and Steve finds himself staring down at it like it’s a lifeline. Bucky’s split knuckles are already scabbed over, still stubbornly pink.

“What HYDRA did to me, what they put in my head—” His hand tightens, ever so slightly. “It’s not gonna go away with a finger-snap. What’s safest for everyone is if I’m out of the game.”

Steve feels like he’s about to internally combust. Bucky’s— he’s right, in his own way. The kind of things – god, the brainwashing, the torture, the fact that a mere _ten words_ can immediately—-

But he’s also selfish. _God_ , he’s selfish. And even if Bucky doesn’t trust himself, _Steve_ trusts him.

But. _But._

Steve can’t make a choice for him. And it’s not his place to fight to take that choice away.

“Steve.” He’s jerked back out of his own mind. Bucky’s looking at him. “Thing is, though, I’ve got things to fix too. If you need me, I won’t— go under.”

“I can’t do that to you,” Steve says immediately. “Not after all this selfish bullshit I’ve pulled. This is—” _Killing me._ “—your choice.”

Bucky rolls his eyes.

“In case it wasn’t dead obvious, I’d do anything for you.”

“You said yourself—”

“In the event someone else digs up those trigger words,” Bucky interrupts, hand tightening more than just ever-so-slightly, “I’d say the safest place for me to be is in reach of _you_.” Steve’s brain is simultaneously at a dead stop and going a million miles an hour. “So,” Bucky continues, softly, “if you want me, I’m yours.”

Steve can’t find any words to say, so instead he does what he _is_ capable of, which is to wrap himself around Bucky, and it’s _still_ so goddamn strange to be this goddamn big in comparison to him. Bucky’s hand slides slow and easy up his back, and it’s so intimately familiar that Steve physically _feels_ his emotional response.

“‘Course I do,” he mutters into Bucky’s shoulder. “ _Always_. But man, you— I can’t make this choice for you.”

“Then we’ll be stuck talkin’ in circles,” Bucky replies, muffled. “Steve, I’ll come with you. I’ll follow you to the ends of the goddamn Earth. But I can’t _make_ you responsible for me. _I_ can’t even be responsible for myself. And if you don’t want to be—” He inhales. “Then I’ll go under, till someone can figure out the safest way to start getting HYDRA’s junk out of my head.”

“If you— if you’re okay with—”

“Steve—” The exasperation in his voice is almost annoyance at this point. “—I _am_. That’s the whole damn point. _I’m_ fine with being out in the field. The question is whether _you_ want to be saddled with someone who might snap on you.” Bucky’s voice is nearly silent by the time he finishes.

Steve leans away just enough to take Bucky’s face between his hands, and deep down his core is still singing at the novelty that this is _Bucky_ , this is his best friend, this is the man who’s been fighting at his side for as long as he’s been picking fights.

Bucky’s matching his stare evenly, eyes ringed with exhaustion but clear and determined, reading his face, and he finally sighs and closes his eyes.

“Say it, _please_ , for the love of God, don’t leave this down to a staring con—”

“I want you with me,” Steve says firmly. “Buck, I want you with me.”

“Okay.” Bucky’s voice is quiet, and he nods, a small, genuine smile tugging at the corners of his mouth. “Well, you’re stuck with me now.”

“Wouldn’t have it any other way.”

It’s supposed to be a joke but Steve finds himself getting overwhelmed anyways and Bucky just reaches out, pulls him in, rubs long strokes up and down his back. Sitting here, bloody and bruised, curled together in the back of a Quinjet in the twenty-first goddamn century, feels like home. Bucky eventually leans back, slings his arm around Steve’s shoulders as if it’s ‘42 and they’re walking away from a scrap gone south.

“So,” Bucky says, a familiar, cocky grin sliding across his face, “outlaws, on the lam together. How many times did we play Billy the Kid when we were eight?” Steve laughs at that, not even wincing as one of the cuts on his face complains.

“When we were _twenty_ ,” Steve corrects. “Remember when that one film came out, where Billy the Kid got shot, but then—”

“—then his buddy’s a dead ringer for him,” Bucky cuts in, laughter bubbling through his words, “and he goes and protects all the ranchers to clear his name or something.”

They both realize the weird-ass irony of the statement and start laughing and god, _god_ , it doesn’t even feel like so many years have passed, like so much has happened, not when they’ve got their arms slung around each other and their noses bumping together, breathless with almost-delirious laughter.

“T’Challa said he’s sent his engineers schematics,” Bucky murmurs, once they’ve come down. “For a new, uh... arm.”

“Really?” Steve says, incredulous.

“Yeah. He was gonna— regardless.”

“Why’s he doing this?” Steve muses, out of curiosity rather than any desire to look a gift horse in the mouth, half-rhetorical.

“He said his father and I are both victims,” Bucky replies. Steve frowns, surprised. He hadn’t been expecting an answer. “He couldn’t help his father, so he wants to help me.”

“He’s a good man,” Steve says.

“He is.”

Bucky sighs and slumps against him, burying his forehead in Steve’s shoulder.

“You know,” Steve says slowly, hand coming up to Bucky’s nape, “if you change your mind—”

“I’ll _tell_ you,” comes the reply. “The last thing I’m scared of is hurting your feelings. ‘Course, making you get all _dramatic_ is another—” Steve shoves him, lightly, and it’s enough to make him cut off, laughing.

“I’m not _dramatic_.”

“Steve,” Bucky says, leaning back, looking almost pitying as he’s trying not to laugh, “do you have any clue what’s happened in the last 72 hours? _Any_ idea?”

“That’s— I— That’s not _dramatic_ , that’s–”

But Bucky’s laughing as Steve tries to lick the wound to his dignity, purposefully leaning back, arm still around Steve’s shoulder so that he has no choice but to go down with him. The cot hasn’t gotten any bigger and they haven’t gotten any smaller, but they make it work. It hasn’t been _that_ long since the last time Steve was curled into Bucky’s shoulder, but he still missed it for that hour or so. Creature comforts.

“For what it’s worth,” Bucky says quietly, hand coming back to cradle Steve’s head, “I’m glad you found me.”

“It’s worth something,” Steve says, and he feels Bucky’s chest jerk with a quiet laugh.

It’ll be okay.

Steve fucked up _monumentally_. It’s almost too much to think about, honestly. He endangered the lives of _way_ too many people. Ruined a few along the way, too.

The world is in total chaos right now, but—- it’ll be okay. Tony’ll do the right thing, even if he’s obtuse about it sometimes. T’Challa has offered them protection, a place to heal. Steve’s got an idea or two about how to fix things. It might not be okay _now_ , and he’ll have his goddamn work cut out for him, but it’ll be okay.

**Author's Note:**

> Huge thanks to [e](http://archiveofourown.org/users/cel10e) for betaing. I swear to god, one day I’ll sort out my pronoun-antecedent issues (which, along with Captain America codafic, seem to be a trend for me).
> 
> a) Title is from Bruce Springsteen’s _[Thunder Road](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YdhkaPZtQF4)_ , but if we’re gonna be honest, _[Backstreets](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oID_fZDtcs0)_ is infinitely more appropriate for these two.  
>  b) I’ve got no idea whether Quinjets are actually outfitted like that, but, you know.  
> c) I’ve also got no idea how much time the movie’s events spanned from Vienna onward, since the only marker we’ve got is the 36 hours, “24 of which have passed.” If anyone’s got numbers, hmu.  
> d) [Billy the Kid Returns](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0029915/plotsummary?ref_=tt_ov_pl%20) is a real movie, that’s a legit summary. Weird things happen when you google “famous outlaws” to make sure you’re not committing the mortal sin of anachronism.  
> e) For funsies: “cryonics” is the appropriate word for shoving people in a freezer. “Cryogenics” refers to the science of cold things in general. (I don’t think it’s incorrect to say ‘cryogenics,’ fwiw, since we all know what it’s supposed to mean.)


End file.
